556 Digital Liaisons Virtual Uncommons: Connecting Information and People in Order to Enhance Lives via Digital Librarianship Chris Cunningham University of Southern Mississippi, USA. christopher.a.cunningham@usm.edu Virginia Dressler Kent State University, USA. vdressle@kent.edu Ekatarina Grguric McGill University Library, Canada. ekatarina.grguric@mcgill.ca Alyson Gamble Simmons College, USA. gamblea@simmons.edu Nushrat Khan North Carolina State University, USA. njkhan@ncsu.edu ABSTRACT Digital librarianship is a rich space in which new prac- titioners often find their feet on the job, picking up needed skill sets and adapting to new technologies on the fly. Creating a space for peer information sharing and mentorship is particularly important for this com- munity. Virtual chat sessions and unconferences are two innovative ways to connect established practition- ers with less experienced students and professionals in supportive, collaborative environments. By combin- ing these two formats, it is possible to create a more inclusive space for mentorship and peer information sharing. We propose hosting a virtual uncommons that transcends geographical locations and other physical barriers. The digital liaisons virtual uncom- mons (DLVU) will feature leaders in digital libraries who will act in a mentoring capacity by responding to questions posed by new information professionals throughout a series of virtual chat sessions and an in- person unconference session. In the DLVU, students and early career professionals will be able to connect with peers and mentors in the field of digital librarian- ship. The virtual uncommons will be a space for infor- mal mentoring and serendipitous networking. This session will be composed of a series of Twitter chats under the hashtag #SIGDLchats and a reflective panel structured as an attendee driven unconference in which panelists serve as moderators. KEYWORDS digital libraries, modern librarianship, future of digital librar- ianship, LIS4Good, digital collections, early-career profes- sionals, mentorship, graduate students, students, student re- search INTRODUCTION This year’s conference theme, Diversity of Engagement: Connecting People and Information in the Physical and Vir- tual Worlds, offers SIG/DL the opportunity to propose a dig- ital liaisons virtual uncommons focusing on enabling the skills of modern librarians to better support the communities we serve. Digital liaisons has historically been delivered as a combination of poster and panel session highlighting innova- tive research in digital libraries and has been recognized as a format that supports student involvement. Last year, due to the difficulty for North American students or early career pro- fessionals to attend the first ASIS&T Annual Meeting in Eu- rope, and the clear implicit need of international mentorship and idea-sharing, we presented digital liaisons as a virtual un- commons: a Twitter chat and networking opportunity to fos- ter conversations about ways in which digital libraries en- hance lives and the future of the profession followed by a re- flective panel session at the Annual Meeting. The panel ses- sion was an unstructured session, similar to an unconference, and acted as a supplement to the Twitter chat. The combina- tion of virtual and in-person elements provided a mechanism for participation regardless of location. This year, building on the success of DVLU in 2016, we have expanded the scope of our Twitter chats from one session to multiple regularly occurring sessions. Beginning in April 2017, SIG/DL started hosting a monthly Twitter chat session devoted to issues in digital libraries (see Figure 1). This panel will continue the discussions started through the 2016 DVLU session, as well as build on the chats that we have hosted since. In the past, digital liaisons has suc- cessfully fulfilled three goals. First, the panel provided stu- dents with an opportunity to present their research at a na- tional conference, thereby serving as a form of outreach for new professionals who desire to take part in the information science research community. Second, the panel provided a venue for presenters to exchange ideas with peers and expe- rienced colleagues, as well as for the more experienced mem- bers to learn from presenters’ fresh perspectives and recent 80 th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Washington, DC, VA | Oct. 27-Nov. 1, 2017 Authors Retain Copyright